After looking over the feedback from the thread "blag 120k requests here", under Development, many users who responded enjoyed lightweight applications and an some preferred lightweight desktop environments. GNOME has always been the default environment for BLAG and moving forward I wanted to get some feedback to see what others would think of using a different environment. What are the challenges of using GNOME for users who are running older hardware? Does a desktop like XFCE or LXDE present a level of usability or difficulty for new users running newer hardware. Leave your vote and leave your opinion.

I selected Lxde As I feel it's more in keeping with Blags aims and "greener". If it wasn't Lxde I'd like Xfce.

Gnome: I don't use it any more now mono applications are a dependency. I think Mono is divisive and more and more mono apps seam to be creeping in to gnome. nuff said. Not my cup of tea.

Xfce4: I'm an Xfce user so it's my personal favourite. Though I use Rox-filer on all my machines. If I do an install on widows users machines I install xfce4.6 as it's very user friendly. I do configure the panel: Main menu > utility's > web > multimedia > graphics > office. With the default application at the top of the list, and a few other tweaks like wicd for the network management. And iceweasel for browser as they tend to be familiar with Firefox. After the first week I've not got any calls about usability. If I could choose, Xfce would be my personal choice. I runs OK on my 333 MHz 256 MB machine and fast on my normal 800MHZ machine. However if Blag still has the same aims. I feel Lxde fulfils the criteria better, for a larger amount of ordinary people around the world. With out the need for them to delve into the CLI.

"blag - le brixton Linux action group works to overthrow corporate control of information and technology through community action and spreading Free Software."

To do this I believe like dyne-bolix, it needs to be as light as possible while remaining fully featured and easy to use. I think Lxde is most suited on these point's. I admit I have no figures to base this on. I did look and if anyone can point me to some showing most people have faster machine's I'd go with Xfce :)

Lxde: It's light, easy to use and enables people on old hardware to run free-software. Basically openbox married to pcmanfm (both gpl'd) with add ons, it's modular so no huge dependency's. It basically mimics the XP style. I think with a menu in the bottom left to aid transition for new users (I always put it at the top and memory foggy). I would imagine many oppressed people would appreciate at least having a blag install, start off light as opposed to heavy, and have to try and down grade. While this wish list is up I'd say a script on install to offer a choice or recommend a choice dependent on peoples hardware maybe a good idea, if it is not hard to implement and the devs want a dual option.

What ever environment is chosen is ultimately up to the people that want to and can develop it. As I can't! I offer my comment's for the idea's and thought's. Maybe people should have a week on each to see what they feel.

Just for the heck of it, and in case others aren't familiar with them.

If it were an option I'd probably pick OpenBox, which I first encountered in the BLAG/Dyne:Bolic "freeeee" distribution. In addition to being lightweight it is also very easy to configure.

I also selected LXDE, but I agree with you,,, even openbox+kde or openbox+gnome is an alternative for the users that prefer eyecandy applications on desktop

I agree too. I chose LXDE because of its lightness, and because it's easy to use. The idea of using openbox as a windows manager with other desktop environments is quite attractive.

I personally use openbox with tint2 and pcmanFM on my computer, and, for me, it's the most perfect, intuitive and powerfull environment : light, fast, easy to customize (I can create a new theme in less than 15 min), intuitive... The two only problems are that I don't have either a "menu" button or a "desktop" button on my panel (but I'm working on it), and that openbox isn't a tiling WM.

As you have probably understood, I really support openbox as a foundation, with a desktop environment around it, or maybe with a "custom" desktop environment made of several softwares :
- pcmanFM/roxfiler (which can also display icons) or Thunar
- tint2/fbpanel/pypanel
- of course obmenu and obconf
- Nitrogen
- GmRun
- LxTerminal or equivalent
- Xarchiver
- Slim
- WiCD

Edit : here's an interesting alternative using openbox : http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/bee (I'm sorry, I didn't find anything but in french, so it's an automatic installer for a lightview environment)

Gnome. Definitely. I like lightweight apps (Abiword, gnumeric, etc), but I like a functional and usable desktop. Gnome. The others lake a few things, including simple network browsing (samba shares, etc, via Places), ease of use and configuration, and other "ease of use" features. Default gnome and Free Software was what drew me to Blag. If the option to install lightweight desktop enviro's was available at install, fine, but if i don't have Gnome available, i shall be very disappointed. These are just the words of one man, but they are my views. Gnome has served me well, and is a very functional and useful desktop. I choose it. :)

It's true that gnome should be offered by default, but other choices should be avialable, mostly because gnome is quite heavy, and not suitable for every computer.

I's been 3 years and 5 different linux distros that I haven't had gnome installed on my computer.

Well, the debate isn't over whether or not these will be available. We'll be making sure every desktop environment, provided it is free software and fedora packages exist, will be in the repository. The debate is over which will be included on the CD.

Well, in this case, I suppose that Gnome should be included anyway. It's essential because much people use this Desktop environment, and, when I was a gnome addict, I couldn't use a distro with another desktop than this one. But isn't it possible to include Gnome with Metacity AND Gnome with Openbox for older configurations?

But, Gnome is also much heavier than LXDE, and should not be included at the expense of the quality of the other softwares that should be included. If the space on a CD is too skimpy to include Gnome, then, LXDE or other lightview environments (Rox Desktop for instance) should be included rather than Gnome.

On the discussion of which desk top i will make my own observations.
Gnome and KDE are both rubbish, they are both bloated, buggy, slow, come with lots of stuff you dont really need, waste space on the cd/dvd that could be used for better things like more drivers etc
The thing i find really offensife to me is how they both have a big dependency thing which often breaks. The idea of making a desktop which will only be happy with certain programs installed and sometimes NEEDS them for other programs or the desktop itself to work is counter productive as it divides the linux world into destop enviroments instead of bringing the comunity together. These destops arnt even good for beginers as it is all very well having all the settings a click or 2 away but not much good if you then find you cant easily choose what programs you want with out synaptic package manager showing warnings for this and that. My conclusion is that BOTH gnome and kde must be confined to the history books forever.
Now many decent programs have been written for these 2 desktops and if we are to get rid of the desktops them selfs and keep some of the programs (at least until they have had time to rewrite them to be independent) A replacement destop must be used which has support for some of these dependancies as a means of providing a step by step approach of weaning eveyone away from all this junk. I think that XFCE is the ideal solution as although it is not perfect either, it is usable by novices, it can look nice (mint debian xfce is good example) and seems to offer some support for gnome programs (gnome ppp and brasero and marble all worked ok) and still manages to run a a decent speed or on lower end computers.
I have read that open box supports this junk(dependancy nonsence) as well and yet still works fine without it all being put on. My only experience with open box is with parted magic The taskbar window selector provides the additional workspaces with out all the wasted proccessing power of compiz though it still works with xfce if you insist (dream linux xfce.
LXDE enviroment has nothing to compete against lightweight window managers and you cant even change the keyboard layout and when put against jwm, busybox, open box and all the other lightweight window managers most of which dont need dependancies to work either

We are thinking about using XFCE or something like that for the next release. So I'm trying a f15 XFCE version with only free software and kernel linux-libre. Seems fine! When you have made all the configurations you wanted.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum